In my continuing quest for botanical factoids, acquainting myself with the new members of my green family, I discovered by accident that one can “stress” their succulents.

Ages ago, as a kid, I had a little specimen of a lithops, which I didn’t realize was a succulent. I killed it by overwatering it, thinking it looked sad because it needed more water, and that’s how I learned the word and concept of a succulent.

Being from a semi-arid place in the US, now owning succulents is like a reminder of where I came from; not only geographically, but also spiritually. My years in the actual desert coincided with such a deep spiritual and emotional desert, for at least five years.

I’ve filled my space with so many different foliage plants, and some that even come from the jungle, and so the humidity level is important for them, and keeping the soil moist. It’s a constant cycle of watering and checking and misting and watering. Succulents are so different; they have juicy, plump leaves (succulent literally means juicy in Latin!) which store water, in a way I can only assume is the same or similar to a cactus, meaning they don’t need as much water to be happy.

My jade plant, pictured above, is ever-so-slightly stressed; this comes from placing a plant either in too-strong or too-hot sun, cold, a lack of water, or both. It gets full sunlight for hours in the morning, so as it has flourished this summer, all the margins of the leaves have taken this lovely magenta hue, which comes from a protective compound called anthocyanin.

In one video I was watching on YouTube, someone said to stop babying your plants, because once they’re a little stressed, they actually become more beautiful, and in fact they grow better. They’re happily stressed. Succulents thrive in the desert because they have the capability to hold onto water during a drought, or protect itself from the sun!

At the beginning of the lockdown, I mentioned to a friend of mine that the pandemic stress seemed to be bringing out the worst in everyone. He corrected me and said, “No Leslie, it’s bringing out the reality of what’s already inside of people.” And he’s right.

While obviously everyone right now has less patience, less energy, and less focus than our usual best selves, I think often I am seeing some beautiful effects of stress on the people around me, and maybe even in myself. I find my “stressed” self is a bit quieter and less energetic than usual, but I’m channeling some new growth toward other things.

The “stressed” version of me is drawing pictures again, which is something I stopped doing at least twenty years ago. I’ve become renewed by this hobby of tending to my gorgeous new houseplants. And suddenly I find myself learning not only new scientific facts and skills, but developing this new theology of houseplants. This blog has been really quiet over the last couple years, and suddenly I’m posting every week!

In a beautiful and symbiotic way, the more I learn about these plants, the more I learn about life and myself. And I hope that this stress only continues to make me grow more beautifully. We are just as resilient as a succulent on the desert plains; we can thrive in the stress, I know it.